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their case taken before another court or
another jury, if they cannot get a fair and
impartial trial in that particular court.
Delegate Henderson said that. It is quite
true under the due process clause of this
Constitution and the United States Con-
stitution, everyone has a right to a fair
trial, but section 8 permits the perpetua-
tion of a shell game by lawyers.
Let me tell you what happens. You are
a litigant in your case. You, your lawyer,
and your witnesses have come to court to
try that case. You have left your place of
work. You have requested your witnesses
at inconvenience to them to leave their
places of work to come to court. At least
twenty people have come to court to sit on
that jury and the lawyer on the other side
walks in with an affidavit in his pocket and
all it says is that he requests that this case
be sent to come other court because he can-
not have a fair or impartial trial there.
He does not have to say why. He merely
states the conclusion and so you come to
court at considerable expense to you, the
witnesses, the jury, and everybody who is
engaged in making that court operate and
suddenly you find out that because the
lawyer had this affidavit in his pocket
everybody goes home.
I have had a personal experience with
this, here in this county. In Anne Arundel
County they passed a rule which said that
if you put the county to all that expense
of calling the judge and jurors in and
getting everybody ready to try that case
but within twenty-four hours before it is
time to hear that case you say "I am not
going to try it here, and I want to go some-
where else," you are going to bear the ex-
pense. You are going to pay the two hun-
dred dollars. That is fair and that is what
ought to happen. However, they cannot en-
force that rule because we have a consti-
tutional right to have a case pulled out of
court one minute before it is ready to start
when everybody there is ready to try it.
The perpetuation of section 8 perpetuates
a shell game by lawyers at the expense of
the counties, the courts, and jury. It does
not take away any fundamental right to a
fair trial.
I urge you not to reject the amendment.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Does anyone desire to speak in favor of the
amendment?
Delegate Mitchell.
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DELEGATE MITCHELL: I wish to
speak against the amendment. We have
spent almost ten days setting up the physi- <
cal structure for the administration of jus-
tice. This section is concerned with a sub-
stantive provision for the administration
of justice where the courts themselves have
been deficient in setting up the regulations
of the use of this right.
Now, supposedly with this system that
has been presented to us, we are getting a
higher quality of the judiciary and a more
efficient system, and we are concentrating
the rule making power in the Court of Ap-
peals, the highest level of the judiciary. It
seems to me that the problems that Dele-
gate Bamberger has enumerated are the
problems that will be corrected by this new
and more efficient judiciary.
Again, I use Mr. Scanlan's words. Let's
not throw out the baby with the bath
water. Let us clean up the problems, cor-
rect the problems, and retain the right.
(Call for the question.)
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Is there any further discussion?
Delegate Churchill Murray.
DELEGATE E. C. MURRAY: Before
the question, did Delegate Willoner have
an amendment? Has he proposed an amend-
ment? Because I think it would affect the
vote of a lot of us.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Delegate Murray, the question before us
is on Amendment No. 12, Delegate Scan-
lan's amendment, which would delete the
whole section completely. If this prevails,
then we can take up the subject again, not
as an amendment, not as a substitute, but
as a new paragraph, as I understand it.
Delegate Weidemeyer.
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: Mr.
President, I suggest that I am having an
amendment prepared to add in our recom-
mendation on line 19, the words "filed
within a reasonable time prior to the date
set for trial — "
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Delegate Weidemeyer, we are on this
amendment at this time.
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: I of-
fered that with the hope that this amend-
ment of Scanlan's would be rejected so
that we can give careful consideration to
it.
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